Mystery Writers Forum
General Discussion and News => Chat => Topic started by: penny on January 24, 2007, 11:09:03 AM
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Has anybody here read S is For Silence?
I'm a Grafton fan. I know. Not very original. But I enjoy her books, and part of it is probably the fact that I've lived in Santa Barbara for a short time on and off when I was growing up.
S is set in a different area, which was a bit of a disappointment for me at first, but I thought the book was well written, the characters were complex, and the small town of Serena Station in the 1950s was described in a very convincing way.
I just had a problem with the motive. This is not a spoiler. I'm not giving anything away. Just stating that the motive wasn't explained, and I think not obvious enough to keep out.
Anybody read it?
Penny
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Penny
I read it a few months ago and was especially interested in the two time lines as my WIP is dealing with something similar. But I don't think I finished it. I know the young woman who was Kinsey's client annoyed me and I think I got a bit bored by it. So I don't remember the motive - if I got that far.
However how Grafton dealt with the timelines was very useful in light of my WIP.
Sorry I wasn't more help
Michele
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Penny, I agree with you about the motive -- and, actually, I felt the whole book was a bit flat. Using two timelines was interesting, and I'm glad Grafton is trying new techniques, but I just didn't care about any of the characters. Not sure why I finished reading the book, honestly. Kept hoping for a change?
Janet
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I liked the first few S. Graftons I read, but she kept dragging back Kinsey's old flame ("Dietz," or something like that) in arbitrary and totally unreasonable ways and it began to look like plain old padding. Perhaps the guy had some fans, but I was never one of 'em. I think I got about as far as H and dropped out.
Byron
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I've read all Sue Grafton's alphabet books, and you're right that S is for Silence didn't live up to its potential. Like most avid readers, I crack any book with the thrill of expectation. I've never failed to finish a book by a writer I've enjoyed before (like Janet, hoping for a good outcome, I guess), but after increasing disappointments (such as with Patricia Cornwell's Kay Scarpetta mystries) I haven't bothered with additional books. As things stand, I'll read T is for Terrorist. Or will it be T is Tommygun? What about T is for Tarantula?
Chase
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Hi, Penny!
I thoroughly enjoyed "S," because of the double time line, the individual voices of the different characters/chapters and the sense of place and time.
What I found confusing was the plethora of characters---all those men---and I kept having to turn back to see what the murderer was doing and saying in his/her previous chapters (I don't want to be a spoiler!). That's how I got the motive straight.
But let's face it---how many motives are there? As Adam Dalgliesh says (quoting an old mentor of his)...love, lust, loathing, lucre...and there are a couple of other L words I can't remember.
Jane Berman
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Jane,
Re your question below:
But let's face it---how many motives are there? As Adam Dalgliesh says (quoting an old mentor of his)...love, lust, loathing, lucre...and there are a couple of other L words I can't remember.
According to Steve Carella, and the rest of the gang at the Eight-Seven (and I agree), all murders boil down to one of two motives. Love or money.
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Jane,
Re your question below:
But let's face it---how many motives are there? As Adam Dalgliesh says (quoting an old mentor of his)...love, lust, loathing, lucre...and there are a couple of other L words I can't remember.
According to Steve Carella, and the rest of the gang at the Eight-Seven (and I agree), all murders boil down to one of two motives. Love or money.
[/quote]
Don't agree. I have at least one murder ( in BLACK ARROW) that has nothing to do with those.
Ingrid
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Ingrid,
Re your comment below:
Don't agree [that love or money are the only motives]. I have at least one murder ( in BLACK ARROW) that has nothing to do with those.
I haven't read Black Arrow yet, and naturally you know your own book better than me even if I have read it, but I bet, when you boil the motive down it'll come down to one of those two, broadly applied.
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Although love and money certainly cover the majority of murders, especially in fiction, to be sure there are more motives. Just off the top of my head are envy, prejudice, pride, politics, anger, and religion. But I'm sure there are those who will want to twist those around to fit a preconceived notion -- in which case we'll need to add "due to annoyance."
Chase
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LOL. I like annoyance. Must try that some day. And Jim, try as I might, I cannot relate the stated motive to either love or money. However, the Japanese have some values that are different from ours.
Ingrid
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I think I got about as far as H and dropped out.
Byron,
I enjoyed her early books, but also stopped reading them somewhere around H, maybe earlier. I can't tell you exactly why. ??? Gee, I should probably go back and read them to find out why and where I stopped. I wouldn't want to make the same mistake with my series. I know I want my readers to keep reading book after book. (When mine are finally out there that is.) ;D
Peg H
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Wasn't "H" the one where Kinsey and another woman were kidnapped by the gangleader with Tourette's? I thought that one was terrific. I dropped out a while after that from sheer lack of time, but I did notice she seemed to be repeating herself in the last one I read, whatever it was.
I have a feeling it's difficult to keep a one-main-character series compelling after 7 books or so -- readers start muttering, "Why doesn't she just get over it?" if core problems don't resolve, and get bored if they do.
And that's without inventing new mystery plots that fit logically into your protagonist's world and inner conflicts.
Hope I face that dilemna someday. ;)
Kathy W.
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I'm almost afraid to admit this, but I've never read any of Grafton's alphabet series. Part of me says I should, after all, how could she have gotten as far along in the alphabet without there being something good about the series. And I'm always looking for an author that will capture me for a enjoyable series.
There are any number of author-character combinations that I'd love to see more of--but maybe the authors were smart in stopping while the combination was still excellent reading rather than trying for more and risking decline and reader disappointment. (Possibly, it was the character's decision by refusing to cooperate with the author.)
Joyce S
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And maybe the publisher refused to take anymore.
Grafton has been around for what, twenty-five years? And Kinsey hasn't aged and is still stuck in that time frame. Much has changed in crime investigation since then. Apart from wanting something new, I don't think I could put up with that "historical" feel.
But from recent magazine stories, Grafton is not hurting for money.
Ingrid
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I felt that this book - S - was written in an entirely different style (two timelines, different setting) because she, too, felt she needed a change.
Also, for the first time Kinsey makes friends, which shows some character development.
BTW, her first books in the series were translated into Hebrew, and the later ones weren't. Guess they didn't catch on here.
Jane, maybe you'd like to share your motive theory with me offline??
Penny
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I'm almost afraid to admit this, but I've never read any of Grafton's alphabet series.
I haven't read them, either, Joyce, so you aren't totally alone. ;D
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I was also very disappointed in S is for Silence. I've read them all, but I think the stories and characters have gotten a bit stale. In this one, I felt that the Kinsey character was flat. I kept looking for more of the personality I remember from earlier books and didn't find it. I'll have to think twice about "T is for...".
Susan
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I gave up on the series somewhere around E or F when it became clear to me that Kinsey wasn't going to grow as the series progressed. Since she wasn't a flat fantasy character like Travis McGee, I felt she needed to deal with her personal demons as well as the exterior ones as the series went on. Having the MC share a strong interior life with us without including it as part of the development of the series makes the story lines feel off balance to me. Marcia Mueller and Janet Evanovich both have allowed their MC to 'grow' as time goes on. Maybe not a lot, but definite maturing.
However, I am clearly in a minority as far as the general reading public goes. Though a mystery book store that had lists of what books tended to sell together had John McDonald and Sue Grafton on the same list, while Marcia Mueller was on a different list which included Sara Paretsky.
Elena
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I never understood the appeal of the Grafton novels. I forced myself to read one and the main detective seems completely colorless. She's the kind of person you'd want to hire, if you actually needed a detective --- but just isn't that interesting to read about.